09) FROM CIVIL WAR TO PEACE ACCORDS IN EL SALVADOR
By Larry Wasslen, Ottawa
Throughout the 1960s and '70s the working class, peasantry, and students continued to organize in El Salvador. Much of the work on the left was done within broadly based coalitions in attempts to create some democratic space. This was complemented by work in trade unions, and within peasant and student movements.
Electoral fraud accompanied military governments as Generals and Colonels replaced each other in the presidential office. Repression was a constant theme of everyday life.
It was at precisely this time that the left became fractured. Some members of the Communist Party of El Salvador left to develop the Fuerzas Populares de Liberacion‑Farabundo Marti (FPL‑1970) and carried out their first battle in 1972.
The left wing of the Partido Democrata Christiano followed a similar course and founded the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP‑1972), which in turn split to form the Fuerzas Armadas de Resistencia Nacional (FARN‑1975).
In the same year the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores Centroamericanos formed its guerrilla organization: Ejercito Revolucionario de Trabajadores Centroamericanos.
The Communist Party of El Salvador, after several attempts to work with other parties to find a path to democracy, created the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion (FAL) on 24 March 1980, the same day that Archbishop Oscar Romero was murdered.
Mass demonstrations, strikes, land and embassy occupations and kidnappings of prominent members of the ruling class or foreign business leaders continued. Military and police actions against the working class were proving less effective in stemming the mobilization of the masses, so certain sections of the oligarchy decided to re‑invigorate death squads, a more direct form of repression.
This was not a completely novel development for the oligarchy, which had organized vigilante groups as far back as the 1930s. In the 1960s the ruling class responded to an upsurge in trade union and peasant organization by establishing the Organizacion Democratico Nacionalista, infamously known by its acronym ORDEN. The founder of this organization was General Jose Alberto Medrano.
In exchange for petty favours, jobs, and immunity from repression, 50,000 to 100,000 joined this organization and became the eyes and ears of the military regimes in the villages, towns, universities and cities. In addition, they made up vigilante groups and acted as paid assassins. Roque Dalton, the famous Salvadorian poet, identified this group as "a key element in the rise of a fascist tendency within certain military and oligarchic circles".
The business group Associacion Nacional de Empresas Privadas (ANEP), and landowners from the eastern part of the country (the Frente de Agricultores de la Region Oriental, FARO), organized the first paramilitary death squad, known as Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional‑Guerra de Exterminacion (FALANGE) in 1975. Their objective was to exterminate all known communists and their collaborators. A collaborator could be any union member, any student or peasant who spoke out in favour of even the mildest of reforms. In one week in October 1975 thirty‑eight people were executed. In 1976 FALANGE changed its name to Union Guerrera Blanca (UGB) but its function remained unchanged.
Within the left there were significant differences in terms of strategy and tactics. Some organizations sought to develop a prolonged people's war combined with the construction of support within the working class, peasantry, and students. Others wanted to rely more on a general uprising and paid little attention to mass organizations. By the late 1970s it was apparent that a divided left would not be able to win this undeclared civil war.
Examples from Cuba and Nicaragua were important. In Nicaragua, the Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional united three factions into one command in March 1979, prior to its final offensive against the hated Somoza regime in the same year. Fidel Castro strongly encouraged unification, which had been achieved in Cuba in the late 1950s.
The Salvadorian left began to work towards unification. To optimize military action the FPL, PCS, and RN formed the Coordinadora Politico Militar in December 1979. In January‑February of 1980 the Coordinadora Revolucionaria de Masses (CRM) was created to unite the many mass organizations of the popular movements. By May 1980, the various guerrilla forces united, and the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) was established. Coordinated guerrilla action resulted in 41 ambushes of army convoys and 122 army casualties.
The forces of repression responded by a joint action of regular army, National Guard and ORDEN units in a "mopping up" operation against the villages of San Jacinto and Las Aradas near the Sumpul River on the border with Honduras. The villagers fled across the river, which was in full flow, only to be met by Honduran troops who forced everyone back into the river. Hundreds drowned, and those who managed to get back to El Salvador were machined‑gunned. Over 600 people were massacred.
The FMLN launched its first coordinated military action on January 10, 1981; this is considered the official start of the civil war. The first offensive of the revolutionaries secured control over the departments of Morazan and Chalatenango. Over a period of several years, the FMLN used basic guerrilla tactics to ambush military convoys and attack outposts around the country. Interspersed with this approach were major offensives such as the attack on the ILopango Air Base, destroying fourteen Bell UH1 Iroquois helicopters, five Dassault Ouragan planes, and three C47s.
Early in the conflict the USA began to give material and financial support to the regime. When military advisers proved insufficient to hold back the revolution, some 1,500 soldiers were sent for direct training in the infamous School of the Americas. Among those were the brutal Atlacatl Battalion, which was responsible for the El Mozote and Cabanas massacres, in which hundreds of innocent civilians were raped and murdered.
Initial attempts by the FMLN to achieve a negotiated end to the war began as early as 1984. But it was not until the major FMLN offensive in 1989 that the USA finally realized they could not defeat the rebel army and agreed to support the peace process.
By the time the Acuerdos de Paz de Chapultepec (Mexico) was signed in January 1992, the 11 year conflict had cost 70,000 lives. Another 8,000 were "disappeared," mostly civilians killed by military or police units, or by the death squads. In addition US imperialism had "invested" $4.2 billion in the savage war.
The final agreement brought important changes to the constitution of El Salvador. The armed forces came under civilian control. Several organs used to attack the people were disbanded, including the National Guard, National Police, Hacienda Police, military intelligence (a civilian intelligence service was established), some military battalions, and paramilitary death squads. More than 10,000 members of these organs were demobilized, reducing the military from 130,000 to 16,000 today. Judicial and electoral reforms made it harder for the right wing to commit fraud during elections. Significant land and labour reforms were also won. The FMLN became an official political party and began to compete in elections.
Since the peace accords, the FMLN has participated in nine elections. From 1994 through 2014, the percentage of the popular vote won by the Frente increased from approximately 30% to greater than 50% in 2009, when, for the first time, a party from the left won the presidential election. In 2014 the FMLN won re‑election in the second round with 50.11% of the popular vote.
(The above article is from the April 1-15, 2014, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)